The present invention relates generally to the assembly of wire harnesses. More particularly, the present invention relates to a new and improved feed assembly for use in the assembly of wire harnesses which reliably feeds, or loads, individual connector elements from feed supplies to a station for further processing, such as terminating a plurality of electrical wires to the connector elements.
Wire harnesses are used in a variety of electronic products, such as televisions and computers, as well as automobiles. These wire harnesses may take a variety of forms. In one such form, the wire harnesses may comprise a series of parallel wires having their opposing ends terminated to corresponding, and opposing, first and second electrical connector elements. The connector elements terminated to the opposing ends of the harness wires may be formed from either a single connector housing component or from multiple connector housing components interlocked together to define a single connector housing. In this latter type of construction, the connector housing may comprise an insulative or dielectric lower base component having wire-receiving openings therein and a cavity which receives an upper insulative component having a series of electrical terminals mounted therein. During termination, the conductor portions of wires are inserted into wire-receiving openings in the housing and then the upper component is pressed into engagement with the base component to displace the insulation surrounding the conductors of the wires and effect termination thereof.
In the assembly of these types of wire harnesses, the upper and base connector components are partially engaged with each other and are fed in serial order to a termination assembly where wires are fed into their wire-receiving openings and the connector components are interlocked together so that the electrical terminals thereof firmly engage the conductive portions of the wires therein. An example of this type of connector is shown in German Patent No. DE 41 28 329.
Quite often, individual connector elements are fed to a wire termination machine, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,440, wherein the connector components are manually loaded into a first termination station. Manual loading of connector components, although desirable from the standpoint that it permits an inspection of the connector component to be carried out prior to feeding, greatly reduces the maximum speed at which the production output of wire harnesses may be maintained.
In other wire harness assembly machines, such is that described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,310,967, issued Apr. 19, 1982 and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the connector elements are mechanically fed from a magazine into a termination station wherein wires are applied thereto. The connector housings are fed individually in serial order into an indexing assembly which holds them in position for termination. Although more effective than a manually loaded termination apparatus, such an apparatus does not contemplate the feeding of a plurality of connector housings or elements from interconnected supplies of same into an indexing mechanism.
Accordingly, in order to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved feed assembly for serially feeding rows of connectors to a work station.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a feed assembly suitable for use in conjunction with a wire harness assembly apparatus in which the feed assembly is adapted to index, feed and separate multiple connector elements from multiple supplies of interconnected connector elements.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a connector feeding apparatus which separates successive rows of connector elements which are advanced in side-by-side order from multiple supplies of connector elements and advances the separated rows along a feed path into registration with a connector element termination apparatus.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a connector loading apparatus for a wire harness-making machine which separates a leading row of connectors from advancing rows of multiple interconnected supplies of connectors, the apparatus severing the leading row of connectors from the advancing supplies by passing a severing knife through interconnecting portions of the connectors, maintaining the severing knife in place and advancing the severed rows of connectors sequentially alongside the severing knife to a processing station.